“I’ve got to tell them; I’ve got to; I’ve got to,” she had told herself resolutely. “I couldn’t go on living here, letting them love me, and be good to me, and not tell them I was a dishonest person. Of course they won’t ever love me any more when they know, but I can’t help that. Percy will be so ashamed to have a dishonest girl for a sister, and Barbara won’t want to ever see me again.”
It was a terrible thought, but it had to be faced. It never occurred to Gretel for a moment that the ticket she had picked up on the sidewalk, in front of the opera house, might not be the one her sister-in-law had lost. “Lohengrin”—the windy afternoon—the date—everything pointed too plainly to the fact that the tickets were one and the same.
And now it was morning, and she must begin her preparations, or it would be too late to carry out the plan she had decided upon. If she waited until people were up, she might be stopped and asked awkward questions, and she must get away before Percy and Barbara knew—she could never face them after that, she would be too much ashamed. With as little noise as possible, she crept out of bed, and began putting on her clothes. How merrily the birds sang and how brightly the sun was shining. She remembered that this was to have been her first day in her beautiful new home. But she never wavered for a moment in her purpose. It did not take long to dress, for she had decided to omit her usual morning bath, lest the sound of running water should disturb the still sleeping household. She was just fastening her dress when another sound besides the singing of the birds, broke the early morning stillness; the shrill whistle of a passing train, and she suddenly remembered that Percy had told her the railway station was not more than half a mile away.
“I’m glad it isn’t far,” she said to herself, with a feeling of something like relief; “I can easily walk there, and there must be plenty of trains going to New York. I’ve got enough money for a ticket. I’m glad I didn’t spend all the ten dollars Percy gave me the day before the wedding.” And she slipped into her pocket the pretty little silver purse her brother had given her.
This done, Gretel opened the closet door, in quest of her hat. At sight of the row of pretty frocks that Higgins had unpacked the night before, she was conscious of a sharp little stab of pain.
“It’s dreadful to have to leave all those lovely things,” she said, with a sob. “It doesn’t seem quite grateful either, when Percy was so good to buy them all for me, but I couldn’t stay and not tell, and when he knows I’m a dishonest person he won’t want me anyway. Perhaps they can find some other girl to give the clothes to, who will deserve them more than I did.”
She selected her plainest hat, and began putting a few necessary toilet articles into the suit-case Higgins had left on the lowest shelf of the closet. Having procured a night-gown, and a fresh set of underclothes from the bureau drawer, she hesitated for a moment, and then drew the packet of old letters from beneath her pillow, and tucked it carefully away in one corner of the suit-case. She glanced regretfully at the row of shabby books, but decided it would not be possible to carry them, and tried to comfort herself with the reflection that Barbara would take care of them for her—Barbara was always so kind.
Her preparations completed, Gretel sat down at the desk to write her confession. She selected a sheet of paper; dipped her pen in the ink, and began to write; but her fingers trembled so she could scarcely form the letters, and it was a very blotted, illegible little note that Higgins, coming in an hour later to wake her little charge, found on the desk, addressed to Mr. Percy Douane.
“Darling Percy”: it began.
“When you get this I shall have gone away, and you and Barbara won’t ever see me any more. I suppose it would be much braver if I stayed and told you myself instead of writing, but I am not at all brave.